Costa Rica, 1950 — dissident coup conspiracy
Event Summary
The dataset records an event coded as a dissident coup conspiracy in Costa Rica on 11 August 1950, during the constitutional presidency of Otilio Ulate, who had taken office in November 1949 after the eighteen-month provisional junta of Jose Figueres handed over power at the close of the 1948 civil war. The young post-war order faced conspiratorial threats from two directions: the exiled supporters of the defeated former presidents Rafael Calderon Guardia and Teodoro Picado, who were sheltered in Nicaragua by the dictator Anastasio Somoza and would mount armed invasions in December 1948 and again in January 1955; and internal right-wing discontent, exemplified by the abortive Cardonazo revolt of April 1949 against the Figueres junta. No discrete documentation of a distinct plot precisely on 11 August 1950 appears in accessible English sources, but it fits the pattern of calderonista exile plotting against the new order.
Costa Rica weathered these threats and consolidated as Latin America's most stable democracy, having abolished its army in 1948.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
09408111950
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: President Otilio Ulate governed the post-civil-war constitutional order; the calderonista threat persisted from exile.
Baseline coding: Plot discovered and disrupted before execution. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Los Angeles Times
New York Times
The Sun
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →